In the Sea of Italian Wine, There Are Clear Winners

Cathy - alternative Italian white wines

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine was celebrating a birthday. With an eye toward giving her a gift, I asked about the favorite wine she’d ever tasted. Her response was two-part.

One was logistical: her favorite was a white wine, a Pinot Grigio, from Italy. The second, quick on its heels, was atmospheric: she recounted a sequence of details about that wine that had nothing to do with its taste or origin, such as her roommate recycling the bottle the next morning before she could note the producer to repurchase, and the group of people who’d shared and enjoyed the wine with her the night before.

Context matters, especially to secure the memory of a wine in our consciousness. The wine itself matters too, and in this case that Italian Pinot Grigio served as a jumping-off point for me to offer my friend a few new Italian white wine options as birthday gifts.

2022 Serra del Conte, Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi (Garofoli)

With origins in the Marche region, the first thing you notice about this wine is the shine of its straw color, bright and refreshing like the wine itself. Served a bit chilled, you’ll also notice its fruitiness and acidity, with hits of lemon on the nose and almond on the finish.

2022 Inzolia, Tenuta Sallier de la Tour (Tasca d’Almerita)

Inzolia is an indigenous grape of Sicily, and its characteristics serve as a lively metaphor for things we also love about the island itself: sunny and spicy, at the crossroads of subtlety and depth. Aromatic. Ripe fruit. Cinnamon.

These wines are less ubiquitous than Pinot Grigio, certainly, but that is part of our point for this week’s column: alternatives to the easily-found “themes” of Italian Pinot Grigio and Italian sparkling wine. We like the essentials of the themes, of course. And we like when the themes take on unexpected flairs of their own.

Matthew - a changing Prosecco perspective

It all clicked for me on my recent visit to Valdobbiadene.

You've likely seen it on a wine label, and have no idea how to pronounce it correctly. Turns out it's really fun to say.

My hosts were Mionetto , a legacy producer of Prosecco who's CEO, Enore Ceola, single handedly arrived in the USA and went door to door at wine shops and restaurants in 1980s New York City. His goal was simple: to turn them onto a wine without much presence outside of the Northeast of Italy at the time. He unintentionally started a sparkling revolution.

USA is the biggest market for Prosecco, we drink it up. It's often available at very favorable price points, and that makes it easy to overlook as a fine sparkling wine. It's quite easy for a sommelier who is Champagne-obsessed to overlook the quality of Prosecco. Those who champion Prosecco are often the very people selling it. But the tide is changing.

Seeing the production facilities, the fermentation tanks are impressive and vast. The point is to protect the freshness and fruit quality the Glera grape gives to Prosecco, and have each not just live through the metamorphosis from still wine to bubbly wine, but benefit from it. Straight up caterpillar to butterfly stuff.

If your reference point is La Marca Prosecco you see at every Trader Joe's and even at gas stations across America, there's another side of Prosecco I want you to introduce yourself to. In Valdobbiadene, a magical place which a dramatic landscape exists...your brain won't believe what your eyes are showing it. I had trouble computing, myself. The special sliver of Cartizze ...that's where the revelation happens.

This Grand Cru of Prosecco is home to some of the most expensive vineyard land in all over Italy. A main reason: no one is willing to sell! There are roughly 108 hectares (267 acres,) but with over 100 owners! This land doesn't change hand often, and if it does, it's by birth-right and not by purchase. A figure that was thrown out was around $2,000,000 per acre...but it's hypothetical. Good luck acquiring land there!

Proseccos from this terroir can fetch over $100 per bottle, and they will challenge the perception you have in your mind of Prosecco. I recommend you track down a bottle, and fairly assess whether you see Prosecco the same after. I sure didn't! It cannt be unseen, the genie does not go back in the bottle. Now I know, and I want you to know as well.